At the start of the new millennium, weíre still adding
to urban sprawl and contributing to global climate change. But it doesnít
have to be this way. It is our acceptance of todayís wasteful economic
system that may allow the planet to boil over. Food for thought and action:
What is the connection between higher energy prices,
longer commutes, the urban heat island effect, one of the biggest causes of
death, the loss of over one million acres of good farmland every year,
species extinction, and loss of community? Paving!
Weíre conditioned to view paving as progress, as in
"pave the way." As a result, thereís as much pavement surface as
wilderness in this nation. Sprawl is a dirty word; yet, itís still out of
control. A slowed economy spells less speculative, car-oriented real estate
development. If society does not make conscious changes, inaction could lead
to crises by which sprawl is stopped "the hard way."
Itís ironic that summers in urban areas are sweltering
due to dwindling affordable fossil fuels for powering air conditioners,
while asphalt, a form of such fuels, raises temperatures as its
heat-absorbing darkness blankets cities. The resulting urban heat island
effect accounts for significantly higher temperatures than surrounding green
open space.
The solution? A moratorium on new roads and parking lots.
It sounds disruptive or ecotopian to some, but even "depaving" has
entered the lexicon, as people restore urban creeks and calm traffic by
rolling back the carpet of oil. The economic, environmental and social
benefits of a paving moratorium are irresistible when considered in light of
the energy and environmental crisis. More pavement, especially over
farmland, is irresponsible as petroleum shortage threatens todayís food
supply system.
As road building hogs the lionís share ($60 billion per
year) of transportation funds, the U.S. has money left to repair just barely
one half of existing roads that need fixing. If the road-building budget
went first towards repair, billions would be left over for development of
greener, cooler and less expensive transportation systems. Expansionist
growth increases electric power demand through creation of more suburbs and
industrial parks.
More and wider roads facilitate the spread of motor
vehicle use. CalTrans and other paving agencies know that it is not
congestion alleviation, but "traffic generation" that results from
added capacity. The car population increases even faster than the human one
worldwide. More roads add to human population (and vice versa), as migration
allows exploitation of more accessible land.
More people driving cars spoils consumer daydreams of
smooth travel. In Seattle, traffic congestion costs the average commuting
motorist over $900 a year in wasted fuel. This figure would be remarkably
smaller with a policy of repair instead of capacity increase.
If road building had ceased as of 1990, efficient mass
transit would now be much more prevalent. In these times of global warming
and rising petroleum costs, as oil and natural gas reserves begin to give
out, it is high time for renewable and human powered transport.
Why not electric cars and buses? Itís a few decades
late for this to still be a great solution. They present only a modest
improvement in air quality and they perpetuate more paving. Switching fuels
will eliminate less than half of the air pollution, as mining for materials,
and the energy for manufacturing, account for most of the vehicleís air
pollution. The researchers who discovered this, at Germanyís Environmental
Forecasting Institute, also found that total carbon dioxide emissions would
increase if all cars were electric and relied on todayís electricity grid.
So letís get on our bikes and live closer to work, or
work nearer to our homes. Keep your fingers crossed for renewable-energy
powered rail trolleys. However, they will not be going down every street in
this resource-constrained world.
Climate change, with its resulting host of problems, is
accelerating. Global warming is largely a result of lack of energy
conservation. The increase of greenhouse gases in the last decade has been
mainly from oil-dependent transportation. This is not the time for a federal
policy weak on conservation. We need to get active and reclaim our
communities. Take the Pledge for Climate Protection, courtesy
Sustainable Energy Institute:
